UNITED KINGDOM — The 163rd edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack, the annual publication dating to 1864 and widely regarded as cricket's "bible," was published Thursday in the United Kingdom with its editor using the edition to criticize what he described as an unhealthy and politicized Indian dominance of global cricket governance. Lawrence Booth, the almanack's editor, wrote that the entanglement of Indian politics and cricket administration had worsened through a turbulent 2025 season.

"It was obvious long before this latest grandstanding that the BCCI were the sporting adjunct of India's ruling BJP," Booth wrote. The International Cricket Council is currently led by chairman Jay Shah, the son of Amit Shah, India's minister of home affairs and a longstanding ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and chief executive Sanjog Gupta.

He also pointed to contradictions among cricket officials across the region. "Was there a clearer indictment of the game's governance in 2025 than Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Mohsin Naqvi's assertion that 'politics and sport can't go together'? Presumably he had forgotten he was also his country's interior minister," he wrote.

He wrote that cricket's governing structures had failed to address the intertwining of politics and sport. "The sport's governance grows ever more Orwellian, pretending that Indian exceptionalism comes without consequence, and blaming those lower down the food chain for lashing out," he wrote.

The 2025 Asia Cup took place against the backdrop of a brief war between India and Pakistan. Players from the two countries refused to shake hands when they faced each other during the tournament. After India defeated Pakistan in the Asia Cup final, Modi posted on X: "Operation Sindoor on the games field. Outcome is the same – India wins!" The real-world Operation Sindoor left dozens of people dead on both sides of the border. Bangladesh was removed from this year's men's T20 World Cup after its government refused to let the team travel to India.

"Predictably, almost no prominent voices in the Indian game addressed the root cause of the carnage: the politicisation of a sport that, whatever Naqvi may say, has never been untouched by the real world, yet never more poisoned by it either," he wrote. No response from the Board of Control for Cricket in India or the ICC was available.